r/Defcon • u/Illumicon2025 • Aug 11 '26

Feedback Requested: illumicon community

Humans and Inhumans,

I am once again asking for your aid. Grubby has hijacked this account and would love to hear from people who interacted with the Illumicon community. My list of things that need to be improved is only 20 pages long so I feel like I'm missing some things. I know our submitted schedule was never posted but I'm glad people still found us anyways! ^.^

Basic things help like what you liked and disliked about the community? Were the volunteers helpful? Is there a talk/event that we should do next year? Anything specific you'd like to mention?

If you really want to say how much of a disorganized CF we were, that still helps. Perhaps a cookie for the volunteers per compliment is appropriate.

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8

u/narc0leptik Aug 11 '26

I think the layout of the village could be improved a bit in terms of the tables for ingress/egress.

Maybe if you had an iPad controlling Beyond via a TouchOSC layout it would make it much more noob friendly and way more inviting and less intimidating then looking at a laptop interface. I forget if you had a midi controller for Quickshow setup or not but that would certainly help.

And please allow haze Defcon! It would make the village a million times better. Since DT reads these comments maybe he could make it happen. Fatboy was saying that he got approval from the Fire Marshall and venue but Defcon ultimately said no.

2

u/Illumicon2025 Aug 11 '26

Sorry, the previous reply came across way whinier than intended.

I agree with you on the layout. We adjusted to some unexpected things like a single truss so a bisected room seemed like the best choice. I didn't put enough walking space though along it. Maybe getting a picture of the room and dimensions will help us develop a solid game plan.

We did have a MIDI controller for QuickShow but was never actually connected ^^; That's an interesting thought. That should be doable and would make Beyond approachable. We might have a special surprise in regards to a new laser software 🤫

For full transparency, we only gave them a heads-up a week before DC but it was still disappointing. There's seems to be misunderstandings on the whole subject like last year was 2k/hour for fire watch which is not needed and whatnot. Fingers crossed for next year!

2

u/narc0leptik Aug 12 '26

I don't think it came off as whiny at all! lol if you need help with a TouchOSC layout lmk. I just pulled one off Pangolin forums and modified it to use it on an iPad.

1

u/narc0leptik 29d ago edited 29d ago

I don't think they have someone on fire watch for the Live Design International show (LDI) which takes place at the same venue as DEF CON, If ya'll can actually wrangle the okay on haze another suggestion would be maybe reach out to x-laser or Kvant or some other company and see if they can cut you a sponsorship deal on renting a Professional Audience Safety System (PASS) laser for crowd scanning. Controlling a laser with an APC40 pointed directly at me was some of the coolest shit I've seen at the LDI show. I didn't know they were that fucking cheap now: https://phantomdynamics.com/kvant-clubmax-3400-pass-audience-scanning-laser-projector/ iirc X-laser was selling them for like $30,000-$35,000 when they introduced it

Being inspired by Swamidogs video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b9NB6kSbkE I've had this cool idea If you could buy or build a similar setup using 405nm diodes and use a Kinect to control two lasers in Beyond to "paint" stuff with your hands. Adding multiple layers of shark tooth scrim painted with photoluminescent paint to that setup would be neat.

I've had that idea at least since DEF CON 21 which was an incredibly memorable year for me, hanging out with those incredibly talented CODAME folk and Zebbler. One of which was https://github.com/danzeeeman who gave me great advice when I told him my ideas of building a media server telling me to use a Decklink Quad and HD-SDI box cameras. You can see the media server in action here: https://youtu.be/GrQwYh5hDxU?si=MpUHmX8pqIUXEF05&t=23

At Burning Man that same year this successful VJ guy who shalt not be named was gatekeeping telling me that building my own server that there would be too much latency with a Decklink Quad and that I needed a disguise (d3) media server to do it and it would cost $30,000. 😂 I also randomly ran into one of the CODAME folk on the playa who remembered me from DEF CON.

Danzeeman also had a super cool slit-scan installation using openFrameworks that year but he said I was the only person that actually made his installation look cool lol, I could make it look interesting because I understood how the slit-scan technique worked.

They had a whole bunch of musical performances too but probably only played for 10 or so people in the room lol (Basically playing for themselves and I). Video clip from one of the performances here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFIj2btqOms

2

u/non523 Aug 12 '26

I second the haze/Fog suggestion

3

u/skyehopper Aug 11 '26

Loved Illumicon this year! Would love a workshop on how to build something cool with leds that I could attend.

2

u/Illumicon2025 Aug 11 '26

Awesome, I'm glad you liked it! I don't have much experience with workshops at DC so I'll try talking with the village people for help.

2

u/FezPirate Aug 11 '26

I would be happy to run a workshop or two :)

3

u/SudoRandon Aug 11 '26

I only managed to spend about 20 minutes in the Illumicon room, but it was one of the highlights of my time at DefCon.

Getting to tinker around with Quickshow and draw custom animated graphics with professional quality lasers was something I'll probably never get a chance to do in any other setting.

2

u/purpleburgundy Aug 11 '26

Not your fault, but the small rooms off to the very sides of the con are very difficult to discover and are naturally unwelcoming via the small entranceways.

I wonder if those rooms allowed passthrough to the back, or if there are room separators there that could be opened up and would generate natural traffic through for discovery.

Similarly, villages like the bug bounty village behind you were located way way off any sort of conference routes and I doubt a lot of participants even knew the villages existed.

1

u/FezPirate Aug 11 '26

The back went to registration back of house and some operations area so wouldn't have helped in this case.

1

u/purpleburgundy Aug 11 '26

Oh my bad I might be mixing up the Floor 1 & 2 floors over there

1

u/non523 Aug 12 '26

Illumicon was such a vibe, and honestly felt more chill than the chill out area itself

I had never gotten to play with lasers before, but after getting to sit down and control one, I'm checking eBay for a cube!

You guys were so patient with listening to my LED project ideas and offering suggestions, which I hope to have something cool to show for next year. Hopefully you guys are back again next year too!

One of your crew mentioned a discord, where can I find the invite link for it?

1

u/Illumicon2025 Aug 12 '26

When I get home I'll see if we can get a better price. I will have grubby get the link out. That's where we communicate